In the field of shipment transportation and facility logistics, it is common to track and audit shipment items that are being handled within a facility for various reasons. For example, tracking and auditing shipment items can provide information on possible human mishandling of the shipment items during various logistics operations. Generally referring to the coordination and transportation of resources including goods and equipment, logistics often relies on the use of distribution centers. These are large facilities such as warehouses that store items for a variety of uses. Given the potential losses that can occur due to possible damages within a facility, it is common in the field to insure the items. Insuring shipment items, provides coverage in the case of accidents and/or damages as a result of their transportation in a facility. However, once a shipment item has been damaged, it is important to understand the reasons that caused the damage for streamlining and efficiency purposes. Additionally, being able to provide an explanation and trail of the incurred damages may be helpful in retrieving the item's costs by submitting successful insurance claims. Thus, it is important to be able to provide a way for tracking and auditing the resource items as they are being handled within a facility such as a distribution center.
Tracking and auditing shipment items and materials is also prominent in the field of manufacturing. Specifically, manufacturing as it relates to the use of conveyor belts on which goods can be placed, assembled and/or transported within a facility. Tracking and auditing of shipment items in a manufacturing environment is helpful for similar reasons to the ones described above. For example, having the ability to provide an auditing trail of shipment items can help satisfy insurance requirements. Additionally, in many instances, items that are being manufactured may become defective or compromised due to machinery malfunctions along the conveyor belts. However, depending on the complexity of the manufacturing chain, identifying the source of the problem may require cessation of operations, which can result to substantial financial losses. As a result, there is a need for tracking and auditing items as they are being handled in manufacturing facilities, whether on conveyor belts or elsewhere.
One primitive approach for tracking and auditing items and resources in general is to do so manually, i.e., through the use of human surveyors for each and every item that is being handled. For example, in the context of a distribution center or warehouse facility, an item will be generally handled by a fork lift or tow truck. In order to track and audit the item as it is being handled by the fork lift or tow truck, an additional person besides the driver would be deployed to act as a surveyor and document the process. Similarly, in the context of manufacturing, human surveyors may need to be placed in between manufacturing conveyor belts depending on the complexity of the site, in order to provide effective tracking of the items. Needless to say, the cost, in terms of time and monetary expense, of such manual review becomes impracticable as the size and scale of the warehouse facility or manufacturing site increases. Moreover, even if each item is reviewed manually, such an effort is error-prone and unlikely to correctly track and identify the entire set of items that may have incurred damage.
In many cases, variations of the above mentioned approach are used. For example, self-reporting by a fork lift driver or assembly line employee during the handling of the items is a common practice. However, this practice is prone to the same problems presented previously and additionally may not be preferred for insurance purposes.
Another commonly employed methodology for tracking and auditing shipment items is the use of surveillance cameras. This approach has several added advantages such as the recording of video that can be stored in digital form or the ability to survey a large warehouse facility or manufacturing site for item handling purposes as well as security purposes. However, in the case of an insurance claim due to item damage, this method still relies on manually filtering the recorded surveillance video by a human surveyor. Moreover, the quality and detail of the recorded video is highly correlated to the specific hardware and overall infrastructure being used for the surveillance system. Additionally, the storage requirements for this approach are highly expensive since the filtering of the recorded video will only occur upon request for a specific action such as an insurance claim. As a result, this method is also prone to errors or inability to track and audit all items that may be damaged due to their handling.
In light of the foregoing, many technological tools have been developed in an effort to reduce reliance on human involvement and improve performance and efficiency in the field of shipment transportation and facility logistics and manufacturing, but also specifically as it relates to the tracking and auditing of items and resources. These tools employ computerized systems executing software algorithms that attempt to identify and retrieve portions of the recorded videos that contain a specific item. Furthermore, the use of optical codes as identifiers for objects enables the association of data with an object that can then be easily transferred, edited and/or displayed. As a result, fork lifts and other material handling vehicles are being fitted with vehicle mounting computing devices and are able to perform data collection and presentation of the collected item information to the user.
An example of a commercially available tool for distribution centers, warehouse operations and manufacturing operations that utilizes computer-based solutions for material and item handling is the Intermec Forklift System by Honeywell Inc. The system is an example of a mobile computing and data collection assisted tool that is used for tracking fork lifts in a facility and increasing inventory accuracy by tracking item misplacements. However, the use of these computer assisted systems in a logistic or manufacturing setting does not provide a complete system for the tracking an auditing of shipment items. These systems rely on the use of human surveyors and do not provide a detailed and complete auditing trail of shipment items in a facility.
Therefore, there is a need for a more efficient and effective system for the tracking an auditing of shipment items that can capture video of the handling of the items in a reliable and time efficient manner while maintaining a low digital storage cost and minimizing the use of manpower. Moreover, there is a need for such a system to be implemented in a portable, user-friendly, and compatible solution that may be used commercially with pre-existing products. Furthermore, there is a need for such a tracking and auditing system to have broad applications beyond logistics and manufacturing, so as to be advantageously usable in any electronic tracking, auditing or item handling system, especially forward looking situations.